Anhell69
- COLOMBIA, ROMANIA, FRANCE, GERMANY / 2022 / Spanish / Color / DCP / 75 min
Director, Script, Photography, Editing: Theo Montoya
Editing: Matthieu Taponier, Delia Oniga
Appearances: Alejandro Hincapié, Camilo Machado, Alejandro Mendigaña, Julián David Moncada, Camilo Najar, Juan Esteban Pérez, Sharllot Zodoma, Víctor Gaviria, Theo Montoya
Producers: Bianca Oana, David Hurst, Theo Montoya, Juan Pablo Castrillón
Production Companies: Desvio Visual, Monogram Film, Dublin Films, Amerikafilm
World Sales: Square Eyes
With friends of his generation from the queer community, the director had planned to make a B-movie with ghosts in his hometown of Medellín, Colombia. A close friend named Angel—account name “Anhell69” on social networking sites—was slated to be cast as the protagonist but died of suicide by drug overdose. The 2016 peace agreement between the government and the rebel leftist guerrilla group FARC seems fragile and to hold little promise. A hearse drives through the streets of this violent and conservative city while the director lies in a coffin, as the narration recalls dreams, fears, and struggles in filmmaking with friends. Through its elaborate methods of cinematic representation, the film serves as testimony to living with sincerity. (HH)
[Director’s Statement] To go through my life is to talk about war, religion, cinema, and about when I met Camilo Najar, Sharlott, MH, Alejandro Paz, Julián David, Mendigaña and Juan Pérez. To talk about them is to evoke the film we could never make together, Anhell69, the annihilation and the “non-future” of my generation, caused by suicide and drugs, and also by the oppression of a conservative and violent society, which tries to exterminate anything that would challenge the status quo. We are finally making Anhell69, not how we first imagined, but in the manner life is allowing us to do it, me and my remaining friends, the protagonists of the film. Anhell69 is the immortalization of our recollections, our memory, our life before death, and maybe a warning for the generations and governments to follow.
Theo MontoyaDirector, cinematographer and producer from Medellín, Colombia. Founder and director of the production company Desvio Visual, dedicated to the creation of auteur and experimental films. His first short film, Son of Sodom (2020), was selected to show at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival and many other festivals internationally, winning prizes at the Drama Film Festival in Greece, Interfilm Berlin, and receiving special Jury Mention in Clermont Ferrand’s Labo Competition. This is his first feature film, which had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival Critics’ Week.